The Eight Emotions of Sherlock Holmes
by Kmacksinclair
Summary: It has been suggested to Sherlock that he should try and find out more about his emotions. John thinks this is a brilliant idea. Sherlock thinks it's idiotic. SEQUEL TO DEAR JOHN
1. Entry 1

**Author's Note;**

**Hello! Thanks for clicking! This is being written as a sequel to my fic 'Dear John'. While you'd probably be able to read this on it's own, I'd recommend reading 'Dear John' first as it explains the back story plus a little bit about how I'm writing Sherlock's family and past. **

**But either way, thank you for reading!**

There was a theory that I was taught during my time at university which states there are eight basic emotions. I admit I did not pay much attention to this at the time due to the fact that emotions had very little effect on my life whatsoever. And quite frankly I don't understand much about any of these emotions, nor do I want to.

However, as part of our current arrangement John has asked me to try and find a way to deal with these 'emotions' as I apparently considering stopping yourself from breathing is a bit not good. And according to John and my 'therapist' to deal with emotions one first needs to understand them. She suggested looking at each basic emotion, to then try and link each emotion with a memory and for me to write down everything I could about each emotion and all the physical and mental changes that came with it. John thinks this is a brilliant idea. I think it's pointless and idiotic.

In conclusion, John wants me to do something, and I don't want to do it.

Therefore I am embarking on a study on emotions.

SH


	2. Fear: Case Study 1

The Eight Emotions of Sherlock Holmes

_**Fear **__-__ feeling afraid. Other words are terror (strong fear), shock, phobia_

Fear is the one of the first emotions I can ever remember feeling as a child, and it seemed to have a very strong presence throughout it. The first instance I can remember occurred when I was six years old.

Our house was very old and very creaky and while I may have been advanced for my young age I still had a few irrational thinking patterns which are common in the majority of children, one of these was classed a 'fear of the dark' by our family Doctor. However, according to him, I had what they call an 'extremist' personality, meaning what is usually a simple fear became a debilitating phobia for me.

Most nights I was completely unable to sleep (My sleeping patterns have never been particularly 'healthy') and those nights in which I could sleep were often disturbed by extremely vivid nightmares, those of which caused Mycroft to choose to move to a room that was not right next to my own. This went over for a little over three months before I heard my Mother declare she 'couldn't take it anymore'. The morning after this declaration she took Mycroft to our Grandmother's house for a 'short break' which turned out to be a little under three weeks.

Apon their departure I remember asking my Father why I had not been taken along as well. He looked me straight in the eye and told me that Mother had wanted to take me but to be honest he did not like being in that big house all alone therefore he had asked her if I could stay behind to keep him company. Even though I was extremely aware he was lying it was somehow comforting.

One night near the beginning of Mother's time away, I was having a particularly restless night and my Father came in with one of his biology books, switched the light on, and read me to sleep by reciting all the parts of the human body. And he did so every night, until one night he came in but without a book in hand. He sat in the chair on the right side of my bed and once again looked me straight in the eye.

'Sherlock, I am very aware you are a very grown up boy, so I'm going to treat you like a grown up. I'm going to ask you a question and I want you to answer honestly. Why are you afraid of the darkness?'

'I'm not afraid of the darkness.'

'What are you afraid of?'

'Falling asleep.'

'Why are you afraid of that?'

'Because I'm afraid one day I will wake up and I'll have lost my entire life.'

While at this point I was no stranger to being laughed at, I was aware the small chuckle that escaped my Father was not of the mocking kind. It was softer, somehow. There was no malice lurking beneath, just pure amusement.

'Where on earth did you get that from?'

'On Christmas Eve I heard Mother tell one of her friends that she had suddenly woken up and she felt as if her entire life had passed her by, like she'd lost every bit of hope. I don't want that to happen to me.'

There were few times I saw my Father angry, this being the first. I watched as his usually joyous eyes darkened, and then watched as he seemed to swallow the anger whole as he tried to piece his smile back together.

'Sherlock Holmes, you listen to me. Your life is not going to be lost, and you know why? Because you are important, Sherlock. Your life is important. Your mind is completely and utterly brilliant meaning you can chose to do whatever you wish with your life. You have every option anyone would ever want in front of you, and I know you will chose one which will make every day exciting, which will make every day mean something. You will not waste your life away Sherlock, and that is the only true way of losing it. You have nothing to be afraid of, I promise.'

I was not a trusting child by any means, but throughout my childhood I put every faith in every word my Father ever spoke. I nodded slowly and just before my Father turned to switch the life off, I spoke.

'Does that mean I could be a pirate?'

Again, he chuckled in amusement.

'If that's what you wish, Sherlock, you will be the best damn pirate the world has ever seen. Goodnight.'

With that he left, the lights switched off, and within moments I was asleep and within the week both Mycroft and Mother had returned, and every single night I got myself to sleep by counting body parts.


	3. Fear: Case Study 2

_**Fear**__ - feeling afraid. Other words are terror (strong fear), shock, phobia_

While there are far too many case studies of my feelings of fear to explore them all to a full extent, I the feel entire point of this 'exercise' is to explore how I have coped with these feelings, and I'm afraid to say that a great number of my recollections do not include particularly healthy ways of coping.

I am the first to admit I do not hold people's expectations of me very highly. I do not have any particularly pulls to certain behaviours because it would please another person. In fact the reason the following case seems so vivid in my memory is because it is one of the very few times I can remember coping with my feelings in a certain way purely because it would please another.

John had stated that he needed time. Every part of my rational told me this was a completely reasonable request and that this is no way meant he was going to change his mind. John had told me he was going to come back, therefore he would.

However, a small part of my mind seemed to have detached completely from any reasonable thought process. On speaking to Mycroft he had diagnosed this as 'depression'. I believe in this instance, Mycroft was utterly wrong. Every definition, explanation and feeling surrounding depression that I had encountered describes a greyness, an emptiness, a numbness. This feeling was anything but numb. It seemed to have simultaneously filled every corner of every thought while still making me incapable of having a clear thought. My heart rate felt as if it was never going to slow down to a point past pure panic and as ever sleep was not even a consideration.

This feeling was pure terror; not unlike the feelings I described previously. However this time the fear was not of losing my life, but that I had already lost John. And in a small way, my fear had already became reality. I had in part lost him.

Apon awakening Mycroft had informed me I would be moving back into 221b Baker Street. He had not however informed me that when I returned I would be utterly alone, left with nothing but a small note explaining that John had decided to go stay with his sister for 'a few days', but that he would however be back. Those 'few days' turned into thirteen days, eight hours and twenty seven minutes, every second of which I was almost paralysed with the realisation he had every right to not return at all.

However as much as the effort to keep my feelings from overtaking my sanity seemed to be draining me from the inside out, giving in to them was simply not an option. John's anger with me came from my actions being selfish and I was well aware that the likelihood of his return would not be helped if I acted in such a way.

So I held it in. I made bad tea and got fresh bodies from the morgue and did an experiment on skin rotting and went to Tesco's and got chucked out of Tesco's and apologised to Mrs Hudson more times that I ever thought I would. And at six forty three on a Monday night I woke from an uneasy sleep to find John staring into the fridge mumbling about throwing out the skin to make room for the food he had brought in. And apon noticing I had woken he turned to me as if he was expecting to find a corpse behind him, and then watched as the realisation that I had in fact survived those thirteen days, eight hours and twenty seven minutes filled up his entire face.

'You look awful, Sherlock.'

'Well, pretending to be dead is a lot harder than one would imagine.'

And for a few seconds the fear returned. I feared that the last sentence had been a bit not good and that he would be angry and he would realise how idiotic it was for him to return and that he would turn around a leave all over again.

And then he laughed. A full, proper, light up the room John-laugh.

And for a moment, every fear I ever had seemed to dissolved into that sound. Because John was home, and everything was okay again.


	4. Fear: Case Study 3

_**Fear **__- __feeling afraid. Other words are terror (strong fear), shock, phobia_

Sometimes that same fear comes back. It appears to be 'out of the blue', due to my cross referencing of places, activities, situations and people surrounding these 'episodes' showing no obvious correlation what so ever.

The first incident occurred a little over two months after John's return. I had crept out of bed shortly after 5am so as not to wake him, and was entirely preoccupied in an examination of evidence from an unsolved case from fourteen years ago that Lestrade seemed to believe was somehow connected to a murder which had occurred the Thursday before. He was obviously incorrect; however since I had already solved the Thursday case I felt there was no harm in having a go at something slightly more challenging. I turned around to reach for a book when I suddenly noticed my blogger sitting across the room, fully dressed, tapping ever so slowly away at his keyboard.

'John?'

'Yeah?'

'How long have you been there?'

'Erm, about forty minutes, why?'

'Why didn't you say hello?'

'I know better than to disturb you when you're working, Sherlock.'

'Oh, right, of course. Tea?'

'Sure, I'll do that now.'

As I watched him plod across the flat in the slippers I had bought him as a makeup present two weeks previously and the cardigan he wore as often as was socially acceptable as he knew it was my personal favourite, it suddenly overwhelmed me. John was _here_. Within the time I had known him I had nearly gotten him blown up, nearly gotten him shot, been slightly responsible for his ASBO, drugged him, thrown myself off a building in front of him, tricked him into believing he would never see me again, and then nearly gone insane because he'd been on a few dates with a perfectly nice girl who I had made sure of had absolutely no hobbies which would be at all likely to get him killed. And he was _still_ here, even though he knew he would always come second. He knew the work came first, and that's how it would always be, and yet he was still standing right before my eyes making the tea as if this was normal.

Because even though I have never claimed to be an expert on relationships I was well aware that there was no place on earth in which this arrangement could be considered at all normal.

And while I was certain that in that moment in time John was happy with living in this madness, I was also certain eventually, at some point, the novelty must wear off.

And while I was certain the loyalty within him would make him fight to make this work, I was also certain for a battle to begin both people must be fighting.

And while I was certain the rational in me would not resent John's choice in leaving, I was also certain whatever emotions I may or may not have would certainly not be as complacent.

And while I was utterly certain it was in no way medically possible, I was also certain that if John were to ever leave my heart would stop the second he walked out the door.

He had given up his entire normality to be with me and, other than intimacy and a small collection of letters, I had given him very little in return.

'Would you like to go out for lunch?'

I watched as John turned to me with a mixture of amusement, confusion and worry spreading over his face.

'I'm sorry, what?'

'Would you like to go out for lunch?'

'You're working.'

'I can take a break.'

And yet again, John Hamish Watson made every single one of my fears vanish within a single second.

As I knew right then that I need not worry about John having to work at this relationship on his own, as I was very much aware there was little humanely possible that I would not do to make sure I would get to see that idiotic grin every day for the rest of my life.


End file.
